Abū Temām,ārNā after presenting his credentials and paying his respects to the King, informed him of the subject of his embassy. “The request which the King your master makes for my daughter,” said the King of Turkistān, “is for me a source of joy and happiness. But as it is to be feared that my daughter is unworthy of the King your master, I desire you to enter my harem to see her and to hear her speak, and to assure yourself if she is capable of pleasing the sovereign who sends you. I will prepare my daughter to receive you.” Abū Temām, who was full of cleverness and discretion, replied to the King with the greatest politeness: “God forbid, your Majesty, that my eyes should behold the Princess, or my ears should dare to hear her voice! If she were not in all respects worthy of the King my master, the Divine will would not have inspired him with the desire of possessing her, nor enslaved his heart to her perfections. My King did not send me with such instructions.” Abū Temām had no sooner spoken these words than the King of Turkistān clasped him in his arms with affection, and cried: “I regard thee as a father, for thou freest my existence from a great burthen.” “O great King!” replied Abū Temām, “since my happy star made me enter the service of my sovereign, I have never experienced anything save benefits, kindness, and peculiar favours. What is the difficulty that I can solve for your Majesty? Let him command me.” “I was even now,” said the King, “busy with the project of thy death, and thou hast happily escaped the severity of my sharp sword. I shall tell thee the motive which urged me to put thee to death, and how thou hast been delivered from that danger. All the ambassadors who have come from different princes to ask my daughter have received the same proposal which I made to thee, to enter my harem, to judge of the beauty and perfections of the Princess; and they all went in. I regarded the prudence and wisdom of these sovereigns according to those of their ambassadors, and to punish their audacity I put them all to death. This year four hundred ambassadors have been beheaded. I preserve their heads in the room which thou wilt see.” Then the King drew from his girdle a key, with which he opened the door of that room, and showed to Abū Temām the four hundred heads of ambassadors. He afterwards added: “The prudence which thou hast shown has saved thy life. It has given me a good opinion of thy sovereign, and I will grant him my daughter.”